Police chiefs draw bead on bid to quash long-gun registry

Chief William Blair, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, during a news conference in Edmonton Monday, August 23, 2010, on the National Firearms Policing Strategy resolution, which was voted on by CACP members at their annual conference.

Photograph by: Chris Schwarz
, Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON — The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police voted unanimously Monday to endorse a new national firearms policing strategy.

In doing so, the association committed to publicly pushing the need for the National Firearms Registry — the long-gun portion of which the Harper government has vowed to abolish.

Not a single hand was raised in opposition to the strategy when Toronto police chief and CACP president Bill Blair called it to a vote at the organization's annual conference in Edmonton, Blair said.

The room was packed with senior officers from police forces across Canada, including the RCMP.

"The information contained in that registry is invaluable to us," Blair said following the vote. "We believe in its retention. We need to ensure that we educate all Canadians and our parliamentarians on the importance of its retention."

The registry is accessed about 11,000 times a day by police officers across Canada, he said.

He called on police officers to communicate the importance of the registry to members in the community as well as politicians, stressing this would not be lobbying, per se, but instead public education.

"It's not a matter of ideology for us. It's a matter of public safety. It's just a matter of officer safety," Blair said.

Of the last 16 officers shot to death in Canada, 14 were killed with long guns, he said, adding long guns represent the majority of guns seized by officers nationwide.

Reached at a news conference in Manitoba, Prime Minister Stephen Harper reaffirmed his government's commitment to kill the long-gun portion of the registry.

"There are some police officers who disagree with the government's position," he said. "On the other hand, all of the elected police officers in the Parliament of Canada support the government's position. There's a bill before Parliament. The only question that matters at this point is whether those members of Parliament who represent areas where this is an important issue are going to vote for their constituents or not for their constituents.

"Canadians have been very clear. They want us to spend our time and our money focusing on the criminal misuse of firearms and not going after law-abiding duck hunters and farmers."

Blair stressed that the registry gives officers responding to a volatile and risky call like a domestic disturbance information about specific guns that could be in the home, allowing them a better understanding of the dangers at play.

"Our advocacy for the retention of the registry is, I want to assure all Canadians, respectful of the concerns of legitimate gun owners," Blair said. "We do not intend to curtail the freedoms or the freedoms or the rights of those gun owners. They are us, they are our fellow citizens."

Blair stressed that the billion-dollar startup cost pinned to the registry is not indicative of the registry's current cost, which Blair pegged at less than $4 million annually.

"Taking away from us the tools we need to do our job will not make our communities safe. We believe that we can work with our communities and work with our parliamentarians to not only retain the tools that we require, but to make sure that they work for everyone," Blair said.

And if parliament votes in favour of scrapping the long gun portion of the registry, as a private member's bill coming before them this fall proposes, the CACP must prepare, Blair said.

One of the key components of the National Firearms Policing Strategy adopted Monday is written as follows: "If legislation changes, co-ordinated efforts will need to be undertaken to fully determine the impacts on policing."

Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner, the sponsor of the bill to kill the long-gun registry, cited an online survey conducted by an Edmonton police officer which seems to suggest most rank-and-file police oppose the registry.

"As I have met with police chiefs and front-line officers this past year, I have repeatedly said that police support for maintaining the long-gun registry is far from unanimous; in fact, it seems that the opposite is true," said Hoeppner in a news release.

Const. Randy Kuntz posted a question on an online forum for Blue Line Magazine, a police publication, asking whether police supported the long-gun registry as a useful working tool. Over the course of 14 months, Kuntz said, he received online responses and emails from 2,631 police officers.

Some 92 per cent of respondents, or 2,410 officers, said the registry was a useless crime-fighting tool, said Kuntz.

"All it's doing is tracking legal-owned firearms, which is kind of useless," said Kuntz, who is also a long-gun owner and acts as a wilderness hunting guide. "I don't know how you'd use it as a crime-fighting tool. I've been straining for years trying to figure that one out."

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Chief William Blair, president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, during a news conference in Edmonton Monday, August 23, 2010, on the National Firearms Policing Strategy resolution, which was voted on by CACP members at their annual conference.

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